Vintage Audio Systems

[MylesBAstor]

Thought I'd start out with this one that never had the occasion to ever hear.

[MylesBAstor]

[jonathanhorwich]

Myles, the first system you show is the Levinson HQD (Hartley Quad Decca) which I owned for several years. I had pure class A levinson ML-2 amplifiers on them tri-amped. The midrange/highs were stunning. The Hartley subs were nowhere near as good as todays subs but good enough. The overall system really was breathtaking in tonality and nuance. Single Quads obviously do many things better but for overall impact, image height the HQD was really something. I'm still convinced if someone put the time in they could create a Quad 57 system that could obviate the faults of the 57s in terms of image height, deep bass, impact, etc. (Note in the picture you'll see a horizontal section dividing the two Quads. Behind that was the Decca tweeter.)

[Garth]

thats a lot of orange in photo one black or dark grey would have been better

[Garth]

A few years back I was fast heading for a vintage system by doing nothing. I found a dealer who was willing to take the electronics on trade in but not the speakers too big to old.

Took him a long time to sell it off.

[JCOConnell]

Is that Sinatra?

[MylesBAstor]

Is that Sinatra?

Uh huh! 😎

Check out the R2R.

[Ki Choi]

Is that Sinatra?

He probably had custom 3 channel mixed down master tapes of his own music to play for that dog.

[JCOConnell]

Wonder if he had the color tv wired to the stereo for early home theater????

[microstrip]

Thought I'd start out with this one that never had the occasion to ever hear.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n8863[/ATTACH]

It looks like the HQD (Hartley - Quad - Decca) system, although we do not see the subs. Perhaps the black amplifier at the right side of the Audio Research is a Mark Levinson ML9 being used for the subs ... I helped a friend building such system in the late 70's - early 80's, using the Mark Levinson active crossovers. The 500 liter 24" woofers (double 1" wall plywood, thin sand filled between them) weighted more than 1000 lbs. The system sounded impressive, but very dependent on recordings - sublime with some ones, unbalanced with others. By far the deepest and having more attack bass I have listened to. Anyway a real proof that you can have the best bass, the best middlle and the best treble, but not enough to have the perfect sound!

Later my friend decided to part with the system and I got the ESL63 stack - it created a wall of sound in my room with an wonderful and lively medium. Greater than life scale, but fantastic for ECM acoustic recordings - vibraphones and pianos had an wonderful sonority.

[MylesBAstor]

LOL....the Chinese menu approach doesn't always work!

[jonathanhorwich]

Weren't the Quads 57s? You mentioned ESL63's.

[MylesBAstor]

Something from not long after I caught the audiophile virus.

[Letsmakeadeal]

Boy were that Vandersteen 2Cs great speakers. Still are...

[Steve Lefkowicz]

My listening room back in the early 1980s. Vintage late 70s Acoustat Monitors with built in Servo Charge amps, PS Audio 4h preamp (used only as a passive with the line stage disabled) and my brand new at the time Linn LP12 (Valhalla, Ittok and a Talisman S). Cables to the speakers were probably Kimber KC-1, through might have still been Monster Interlink 4. 20 foot cables were expensive!

[Steve Lefkowicz]

Actually, based on the color, I see this photo has the Kimber KC1s

[MylesBAstor]

My listening room back in the early 1980s. Vintage late 70s Acoustat Monitors with built in Servo Charge amps, PS Audio 4h preamp (used only as a passive with the line stage disabled) and my brand new at the time Linn LP12 (Valhalla, Ittok and a Talisman S). Cables to the speakers were probably Kimber KC-1, through might have still been Monster Interlink 4. 20 foot cables were expensive!

Wow that must have sounded special!

[jnr]

In 1974 I was a college student and I purchase two used pair of Quad 57s and built some frames for them. They looked nothing as nice, but about the same design as those in your first picture. I drove them with two Quad amps and an ARC SP-3 and a big Sony DD turntable, a Kieth Monks tonearm and a Decca cartridge.

[Steve Lefkowicz]

Wow that must have sounded special!

Honestly, it was one of the best sounding systems/rooms I've ever heard. Been chasing the memory of that ever since I sold the house and speakers in 1988. Acoustat lost a lot of their magic when they gave up the servo-charge amp for the Medallion transformers in an attempt to broaden the appeal to audiophiles who wanted to obsess over switching amps. If I ever have a room big enough again, I would love to find a working pair of these speakers again. Brooks Berdan had a pair in his store museum in Monrovia, but of course those items weren't for sale.

[MylesBAstor]

Honestly, it was one of the best sounding systems/rooms I've ever heard. Been chasing the memory of that ever since I sold the house and speakers in 1988. Acoustat lost a lot of their magic when they gave up the servo-charge amp for the Medallion transformers in an attempt to broaden the appeal to audiophiles who wanted to obsess over switching amps. If I ever have a room big enough again, I would love to find a working pair of these speakers again. Brooks Berdan had a pair in his store museum in Monrovia, but of course those items weren't for sale.

The first pair of Acoustats that I heard were the 1+1s at Sound by Singer's second location on Lexington and 34th St. IIRC they were being driven by Hafler 500s (ugh) and assisted by an ARC 6B and Linn turntable. Remember the ARC/solid-state combo was very popular back then. Despite the awful Hafler 500 (one of my worst all time audio purchasers ever!), the sound was pretty good. I'll never forget putting the first RLJ album on the Linn and hearing her body centered between the speakers and having that additional dimension of height.

A good friend however had the 1+1s and could never find an amplifier to drive the speakers. ARC, EAR, etc. no dice. Even the Accoustat TNT amplifier, one that I thought would be a great match, sounded positively horrible on the 1+1s. Just two dimensional, thin, washed out and pathetically compressed sounding. A poster child for the worst of solid-state sound back then. I think my buddy ended up with one of ARC amplifiers driving his 1+1s.

[MylesBAstor]

Yeah the Accoustats were one of those speakers (truthfully like many estats) in search of an amplifier. If only I had the right amplifier, this would be a world class speaker. Kind of like women who think they can reform those bad boys. It never works. We still have a few speakers like that around like that today too.

[Steve Lefkowicz]

We we reviewed the 1+1 for Hi Fi Heretic (anyone remember that magazine?) we found the Eagle 2 to do a great job with it, as did a pair of Naim 135 monoblocks. It was just that the transformers weren't very transparent. We didn't care for the Acoustat amp much either.
On the Acoustat group on Facebook,it seems a lot of folks with 1+1 or 2+2 are swapping the Medallions out for rebuilt servo charge amps. I may be wrong, but I think Rodger Modjeski from RAM was doing a direct drive amp for them too.

[MylesBAstor]

I remember Hi-Fi Heretic!

[tdh888]

Hi guys ,

Here is my current vintage system .